


Implosion

by orphan_account



Series: Morty Falls [2]
Category: Gravity Falls, Rick and Morty
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Autistic Pines Family, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Poor Life Choices, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, hold on buddies this is the calm before the storm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-25 04:58:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6181192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mabel grins, her teeth constrained with braces, and Stanford is already figuring out new ways to defend himself if this all goes horribly wrong. Magnet gun on his inner left thigh to incapacitate it, laser gun on the outside to blast a hole through its brain, and there are three escape routes just in case the main one is blocked.</p><p>The other kid, the one who isn’t Morty or Mabel, is looking at him with a tiny smile and eyes that sparkle enough with wonder to make Stanford concerned as to whether he poured glitter in his eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Implosion

**Author's Note:**

> first posted 7/3/16  
> edited 10/3/16

1

 

Stanford Filbrick Pines leaves the portal like ripping off a thirty-year-old band aid. The first thing he sees is his brother, with Rick Sanchez standing behind him.

“What the _fuck_?” he shouts, his mouth hanging open. “Stanley, what the hell is _he_ doing here?”

“Woah, you nerdy p-piece of shit, w-way to fucking go. I’m here because we’re technically related,” Rick says, rolling his eyes. “And I thought this dimension would have a less dickish Stanford.”

Stanford is about to react when there is a tightness around his chest. He automatically goes to punch whatever it is away from him, but stops as soon as he realises that it’s his brother.

“Stanley, what are you doing?”

“I’m hugging you, poindexter,” Stanley says, his gravelly voice muffled in Stanford’s coat. “I’m hugging you because I haven’t seen you since I fu… since I messed up everything.”

“Okay, Mabel Pines here, what the heck is going on?” a squeaky feminine voice finally shouts after a few moments of awkward silence and unreturned embraces.

“What?” Stanford pulls away from his brother and turns to see three brown-haired children, one of which he recognises as Rick’s grandson. “Crap, Stanley, you didn’t tell me there were children down here!”

“ _Language_ ,” Stan growls. “Morty’s thirteen, and the kids are only twelve.”

Mabel grins, her teeth constrained with braces, and Stanford is already figuring out new ways to defend himself if this all goes horribly wrong. Magnet gun on his inner left thigh to incapacitate it, laser gun on the outside to blast a hole through its brain, and there are three escape routes just in case the main one is blocked.

“Fuck yeah, I taught her every word she knows!” Rick is saying, and a tug on his sleeve brings Stanford back to reality.

The other kid, the one who isn’t Morty or Mabel, is looking at him with a tiny smile and eyes that sparkle enough with wonder to make Stanford concerned as to whether he poured glitter in his eyes.

“You… You’re the author of the jounals?” the boy asks.

Stanford nods, kneeling down to be on the same level as the child. A flash; a return to his childhood, seven years old and an adult, someone he didn’t know, sitting in order to be on the same level. Feeling valid.

“Yes, have you read them?”

“J-just the third one, and it saved me and my sister a lot. Morty as well, I guess, but, but I added some things. Did you know that gnomes are weak to leaf blowers?”

Stanford beams. This kid is an innovative genius. “No, I didn’t! How did you find that out?”

Dipper grins weakly. “Well, it was actually Mabel,” he says, scratching the back of his neck. “They tried to kidnap her to make her their queen. I saved her, because I thought they were zombies, but they cornered us. Apparently Mabel had had an incident with the leaf blower before and used it to launch their leader away. Did you know that gnomes are useless without a good leader?”

“I didn’t,” says Stanford. “I never had a reason to separate gnomes from each other except for study, and even then, I believe that Shmebulock Senior wasn’t the brightest of the bunch.”

Dipper agrees enthusiastically, and Stanford tries to truly relax for the first time in thirty-five years.

 

 

 

2

 

There’s no room left for Stanford in his own house. The guest bedroom is occupied by Stanley, the attic by the twins, while Morty slept in one of Stanford’s old studies. It’ the nicest one, too, with the big windows that overlook the forest and less draught than the other rooms. In all honesty, Stanford doesn’t know where Rick sleeps. He probably lives in a kitchen cupboard or something.

If he was unused to the situation of having nowhere to sleep, the lack of beds would pose a problem. However, it only takes removing his coat to use as a blanket and settling in the corner of the living room to have Ford drift into a light slumber.

Visions flicker under his eyelids, of brothers and demons and monsters, leaving him subconsciously twitching. Despite his lack of knowledge to the outside world, he remains as on edge as he would be awake, so when the floorboards creak, he is awake in an instant and pushing the new bipedal creature where, if it was human, its celiac plexus would be.

“Crap, Stanford!” a voice shouts, and it should be familiar, but Stanford feels nothing but the pulse of the fight and his gun in his hand.

There is a sudden pain in his right cheek, throwing his head backwards, and that sells it. This creature will suffer. He switches his gun to burn instead of kill, and aims steadily at the creature’s right shoulder.

“Stanford, listen!” yells the voice again.

 _Stanford_ is a familiar sound. The stressed first syllable, the rough voice that says it that he hasn’t heard in what must be years, days, months or hours.

Half of Stanford believes that it is yet another hallucination or shapeshifter, but the rest is giving him memories. Returning through the portal and seeing his brother. Wanting to punch the man but being distracted by Rick – who is Rick? Why does he know Rick? Rick Rick Rick – and instead being hugged. Telling his entire life story with two adults he barely trusts to three wide-eyed children and one wide-eyed adult. Firmly telling Stanley to leave the house after the summer and move somewhere else, just to get a response of an exhausting shouting match. Anger. Exhaustion. And, no matter how much he tries to hide it, the overwhelming fear that follows him everywhere.

“Stanford, please, calm down,” the voice says. “It’s me, Stanley, I’m not gonna hurt you. Please, focus on my voice. I… I think you’re having a panic attack? Put a hand on your chest and one on your stomach. Please, _please_ Stanford. Yeah, good, like that. Now, try and breathe in slowly, yeah, right, but make sure the hand on your chest doesn’t move. Breathe into your stomach, I think? Right, you’re getting it, Stanford. Now, just keep doing that, and when you think you can, open your eyes. I’m a little bit in front of you, about an arm’s length away, so don’t be surprised. You, you think you can do that?”

Stanford makes a little noise, like a frightened kitten, before forcing his eyes open. As promised, Stanley is sitting in front of him, wearing nothing but an old vest and striped boxers. His bushy brows are furrowed, and it takes a moment for Stanford to understand the expression as concern.

After a few moments of awkward eye contact, Stanford glances away and speaks up weakly. “I… I’ll be fine. You can leave if you want.”

Stanley extends his hand, as though he means for Stanford to stop. Yet again, the personal, human motion feels unfamiliar to him, and it is only after Stanley begins lowering his hand that Stanford raises his own and interlocks their fingers together; six fingers perfectly encasing five.

After what could have been moments or minutes, Stanford looks back at his brother, who looks just as awed and open as when they first saw a big carnival. Stanford leans in and rests his forehead on their interlinked fingers, trying not to let his shoulders shake with the need to drink until the world is blurry and doesn't matter anymore.

“Please don’t go,” he chokes out.

“Getting a few mixed messages here, Sixer.” The reply is gruff, and Stanley’s emotions are so much more difficult to read than Stanford had ever known. He had never understood sarcastic tones of voice before unless his brother commented on it. After a few seconds, a thumb strokes his hair firmly, grounding him to reality and reminding him that he really needs a shower. “Sorry, that joke was poorly-timed. If you want me to st-stay, Ford, then… Well, when have I ever said no to you?”

 _When you broke my machine, my ticket to college_ , part of Ford wants to say. It's the part that wants to drink until he blacks out, that wants to run from this person who knows him so well, who knows his weaknesses, could betray him at a moments notice. He wants to say lots of things; none of which are appropriate for estranged twin brothers desperately trying to repair a broken relationship.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

 

 

 

3

 

Mabel is, in a word, terrifying. Mabel is, in two words, sweetly loving. Mabel is, in three words, saccharine and stubborn.

But, in Ford’s opinion, she is a dangerous liability and the greatest asset they have.

In another universe, he would have overlooked her as sweet and silly, but not as powerful as she could be. Maybe he would have decided that she was too stubborn for him, and that they would butt heads too much for him to bother with her.

Here, however, Mabel is the glue that holds them all together. She pulls at people’s sleeves and has a gaze that people cannot disagree with. Rick, drinking alone in his room and with an ease that Stanford would kill for, creates little inventions that Ford had _actually_ killed for, could never really disagree with Mabel’s pout. The old man, technically now Ford’s relation, claims that he only obeys Mabel’s whims because otherwise Stanley could kick him out, but every Rick that Ford had met would smirk in self-loathing and disagree. Ricks only admit their emotions when it would embarrass another.

And everyone would follow Mabel because she has a personality best likened to Ford’s magnet gun in that it can bring any metal with it for miles around, but instead of the magnet gun he means Mabel, and by metal he means other actual human beings. Ford has never claimed to be any good at metaphors.

So they would all watch one of Mabel’s weird shows together. She would try to find funny shows for herself with a strong plot and mystery elements for Dipper and excellent action sequences for Morty. The adults’ interests ran close enough to that of the kids that such a show would undoubtedly appeal to the entire family.

Stanford blinks from his seat on the floor and shakes his head. He doesn’t know these people, he tells himself. They are strangers, and they can turn on him at any moment.

Ford sighs quietly, unnoticed by everyone else, and pretends that he is happy.

 

 

 

4

 

When Ford is in the basement, the rest of the family seems to forget how thin the walls are. They dance to sudden beats, the kids cheer and scream as they play their games, and Morty and Stan argue.

He needs an audience for his new experiment - a container for an interdimensional rift that he would normally tell nobody about, but, then again, it has been thirty years - and since Rick is hardly impressed by anything and Stan is arguing with his son, that leaves the twins to be his fortunate victims of what could either be a triumph for science or horrific body horror, the latter of which they had already experienced enough of for it to not scar them for life.

The stairs creak quietly as he ascends; walking toe-heel with soft steps, but a sudden wave of anxiety crushes him as he stands outside of the attic, trying to pluck up the courage to just knock on the door. He is Stanford Filbrick Pines, eldest son and successful scientist, and he is scared stiff of two children who, even with their near-identical lifespans combined, are less than half his age. He places his hands on his chest and stomach to regulate his breathing for a few minutes before raising his fist to knock.

Of course, that is the precise moment that the twins decide to start a conversation.

“I want to go home,” Mabel says.

Dipper’s head whips around so fast that Ford has to physically prevent himself from reaching for his gun due to the sudden motion.

“Why, Mabel?” he asks, his familiar expression of worry coating his face. “You were so excited to visit, and you have so many friends here…”

“I was!” she groans. Ford tries to block out the sound of her plaintive words and leave, but finds that her plight is too difficult to ignore, even if he doesn’t know how to fix it. Mabel goes on, her voice more muffled. “I was so happy at the start. Well, I wasn’t, but everyone else was. You had your mysteries, and you wanted me around, and then Morty started hanging out with us after we made him identify those paw prints and you got captured by that monster. And then we were all doing family things, like big trips out…”

“Mabel, that adventure with Rick was because he was too drunk to realise I wasn’t Morty,” says Dipper, laughing a little.

“Yeah, but we were all happy, weren’t we?” Mabel sighs back. “Now Morty’s angry, Stan’s sad, and I don’t even know what’s up with Rick.”

“He’s sad too,” Dipper adds, and Ford can almost hear him shrug. “I know you can tell.”

Mabel hums. “Rick tends to be an exception. But Dipper, you’re trying to distract me.”

“Because you’re sad,” he interjects, "and so is everyone else. I wouldn't call that distracting you."

“Yeah,” she says, and there’s a sad chuckle in her voice. “But I’m not sure if I did the right thing, you know, in pressing the button. I mean, I know i was right to get Ford back, but now everyone's mad and I can't understand anything. I’m not sure about anything anymore, and I just want to go home.”

“Like, get out of Gravity Falls go home, or get to a familiar place go home?”

The sentence makes no sense to Ford, but Mabel clearly understands as she says, “Familiar place. Because this, you know, Gravity Falls, it feels like home now. But the feeling is just… It’s like trying to fix a necklace when you’ve lost some of the beads, and you know that they’re gone, but you don’t know where and what they look like and I think this metaphor is getting away from me.”

Dipper laughs and Ford hears motion. He strides away from the door, as quiet as a corpse in a vacuum, but not before he hears Mabel's muffled voice chuckle wetly.

“Will it be okay?”

He doesn’t hear the reply.

 

 

 

5

 

Stanley is sitting in his yellow armchair, Mabel and Dipper perched on his lap and Morty in the beanbag in front of the dinosaur skull. Their faces are illuminated by the television screen, creating bright, flickering patterns over pale skin. When a silly voice from the old box tells an incredibly bad pun, Mabel and Stanley laugh hysterically while Dipper and Morty exchange a look of resignation to the fate of being related to them.

“Summer and Wendy would love this!” Mabel beams. “Let’s invite them around next time we have a movie night!”

“Mabel, whenever they c-come around, you always suggest we watch Dream Boy High,” grins Morty affectionately. “You’d only be able to get them to sit down and watch with your grappling hook. J-just launch it at them and stop them from moving.”

Mabel fishes said weapon out of her sweater and smiles with wickedly shining braces. “I’m ready!”

Stanley laughs, his voice booming. “You little fighter!” he chuckles, but he is drowned out by Dipper.

“Mabel, we banned you from using that on people since the Incident!”

The girl blows a raspberry and waves the grappling hook around. “Incident, schmincident, dorkus, either way, we’re going to have a big family movie night and that _includes_ the old man science nerds!”

Stanford shakes his head, unseen by his family. A sad smile flits across his lips before he walks away.

 

 

 

6

 

They had movie night.

Dream Boy High was terrible.

Stanford loved it, even though the animation was awful and bright enough to burn his eyes. It was a breath of fresh air, he supposes, and the musical numbers weren’t half catchy. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Dipper mouthing along to a few of the songs, and Morty tapping his foot to the beat.

It was nice, he supposes, to just sit down and relax, and to pretend that by the next morning they weren’t all going to be at each other’s throats. They’ll try, though. For Mabel. Because they’re Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford and, um, Grunkle-ish Rick.

Everyone loves that girl, and Stanford knows that their loyalty to her is unquestionable. She has more than enough love to give for all of them thrice, and Stanford wishes that he could siphon some from her for himself, so maybe for once, he wouldn’t have to deal with Morty’s mistrustful glares and Stanley’s regretful stares and the way that Rick smirks when Stanford is having a bad day and he takes a long sip from his flask and Ford has to wait until everyone else has left the room to surreptitiously fill his own canteen.

But for now, it’s just those two oddly-named and possibly related eighties animated boys and his family is happy.

 

 

 

7

 

And yes, he supposes that life is pretty great for a while. He bonds with Dipper and Mabel, kind of. He and Dipper play Dungeons Dungeons and More Dungeons together sometimes in the basement that Stanford now inhabits, and occasionally Mabel joins in and teams up with Dipper. One time they’re both the Dungeon Masters, and they drag Morty down to join in, playing less than ten metres away from an interdimensional rift between universes that nobody but Stanford knows of.

Morty isn’t as stupid as the Ricks that Stanford knew before claimed him to be. He’s quick-witted and thinks ahead. Not as much as Stanford does, of course, but Morty hasn’t had over thirty years of experience with planning in advance for multitudes of outcomes. This doesn’t mean that Mabel’s ideas are predictable, because while Stanford is having trouble with the amount of unicorns and hot elves spouting the strangest sentences that would be meaningless to the common listener, Morty is somehow translating everything in his head and then muttering what Mabel means for Stanford’s benefit.

Rick would be impressed. Or rather, he wouldn’t, because a green portal opens and Rick steps out before snorting with unconcealed amusement and disdain.

“Re-really, Morty?” smirks Rick. “Come on, l-leave the dumb kids game to Fordsy.”

Morty blushes, clutching his upper arm with the opposite hand defensively. “Rick, Dipper and Mabel asked me to play, an-and I think it’s really fun!”

“Yeah, Morty, well, we’ve got an, an emergency, with aliens,” Rick says as he rolls his eyes. “We’ve gotta go off-planet, Morty. Because of aliens.”

“Maybe I could help,” Stanford says, smiling smugly, because this is his place and Rick has no right to be here. “Since I’m sober, I’ll probably be steadier and more coordinated.”

Rick laughs humourlessly, pulling Morty up. “Y-yeah, take the moral, take the moral high road, then. I mean, it’s not like _you’re_ the one stealing from my stash every other night, unless you’re gonna blame it on your p-pickpocketing pixies or whatever bullshit name you gave them.”

“Grunkle Ford?” Mabel whimpers. “Are…”

“At least I’m not perpetually like that in front of the kids!” Stanford shouts, getting to his feet and shaking with rage. He points at Rick, narrowing his eyes. “While _you_ , you don’t even care about setting a good example. You’re just so full of yourself, you know that?”

Rolling his eyes, Rick pulls Morty through the portal “Yeah, whatever, en-enjoy being owned in your dumb fake-smart person game by a couple of preteens, you hypo- _curp_ -critical snob.”

“Great-Uncle Ford, are you okay?” Dipper asks, reaching out to touch Stanford’s forearm. He pulls himself away, twisting out of Dipper’s grip with possibly more force than necessary.

“You kids should go upstairs,” says Stanford. “It’s summertime, you shouldn’t be down here with an old man like me. Go outside or something.”

As Stanford chivvies the twins to the elevator before going up to the gift shop of the shack with them both, Dipper and Mabel try to talk to him. Blanking them both probably isn’t the best option, but then again, going straight to the kitchen, getting himself a couple of bottles from Rick’s stash, then returning to the basement isn’t better.

**Author's Note:**

> okay so this is more of a buildup for where the au is going, the next one will probably be one of the kids' perspectives and more apocalypse stuff, as well as one-horned magical-haired pieces of shit


End file.
